Woman to be buried decade after death

GALENA, Ill. -- A Jo Daviess County Circuit Court judge has ruled that the remains of a woman found in her son's basement 10 years after she died will be buried 13 miles from where she lived.

Mary Albaum will be buried in the rural Stockton-Pleasant Valley area in an unspecified location. Authorities discovered her corpse Aug. 9 in a basement while trying to serve an eviction notice to her son, Ben Belden, 67, at his rural northwest Illinois home.

Albaum's pacemaker helped authorities identify her. She died of natural causes at a hospital 1992 at 97.

Belden had donated his mother's body to Northern Illinois University for scientific study. He regained his mother's remains two years later, but apparently never buried her.

Belden was not charged with a crime.